Our Norstar phones set themselves back an hour over the weekend. I’m sure a software update will be $$$, if one is even available. I figured out how to set the clocks manually, so I guess we’ll live with it.

They extended DST as an energy experiment, and I see no valid reason for it to work. The cost and effort of changing a well established system will far outweigh the minimal (if any) gains. They would get better results by giving away CFLs. But that would cost the gov’t money, where as this just costs people money, effort, and time.

Wow, Consumerist, thank you for helping me look smart at work just now *laugh* My boss called me this morning asking why his cell phone was wrong by an hour, and I just went and told him why. You guys get a gold star.

Does anyone have a link to the US gov’t report which concluded that the DST change actually REQUIRED more energy due to the new chips which had to be made, software changes which had to be made, etc. to accommodate this change? It came out about a month after the last time change.

Dumb law overall, as lighting uses little electricity compared to computers, machines, heating & air conditioning. I’m all for dropping DST once and for all.

gee thanks Bush, i’m sure this whole thing is going to make for a very amusing experiment. feel free to join the rest of the world in laughing at our running around, trying to figure out what the hell time it is.

Ugh, last night around 10PM all my clocks changed. I don’t know why it happened early either. My alarm clock was an hour behind and my cable box was an hour ahead, my cellphone and computer were the only clocks that didn’t change. I didn’t know if I was going to bed early or late.

I had a bizarre moment yesterday – scheduled to meet ma-in-law for fine Indian cuisine. I think I’m on schedule cause the clock in the bedroom says 11:15. Look at the time on my computer and it’s 12:15. Wh-what? Time on phone: 11:15. Time on lo-tech clocks, 12:15. After some shenanigans, we were :45 late. So much for our fancy atomic-clocks…

Even with all the onslaught of media coverage on the night before the change, it seems many people still wind up late to work on Monday morning.

The problem is that “computer chips” don’t get the news that the law was changed, but as soon as it was announced, all the electronics companies updated their chips to take into account the new law and dates affected.

As much as people bitch about the Daylight Saving time change, nobody seems to bother figuring out who’s responsible. For that, we can thank Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), sponsor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, along with Richard Pombo (R-CA) and William Thomas (R-CA). Interestingly, Joe Barton is the recipient of more campaign funding from the oil industry than any other Congressman in the 2004 election. Whether he did this out of the goodness of his heart for conservation or has ulterior motives, I don’t have the answer. But it makes you wonder.

@shertzerj: My cable box showed the correct time period when you selected the cable guide this week, but I noticed yesterday that it had readjusted all the preset timer programs back an hour. Didn’t just come on at the wrong time, but the actual time start and stop settings in the timer menu were all rolled back by one hour. So it was trying to tune in Seinfeld at 6 PM instead of 7, and the timer settings said it came on at 6 PM. Wierd. Almost as if they only partially “fixed” the DST bug in the firmware and caused another problem instead. It’s an SA 3250HD box on Charter cable.